Dooyeweerd’s Philosophy of Economics

Abraham Kuyper repeatedly stressed the desirability of an independent Calvinist science of economics. At the Free University of Amsterdam, economists with such ideals would indeed appear, but their normative approach to economics was overshadowed by the rise of economic positivism. As a pupil of Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd provided Calvinist economics with a philosophical foundation. In this article, Dooyeweerd’s philosophy of economics based on his “philosophy of the cosmonomic idea” is summarized and placed into a historical context. Also explained is how his philosophical interpretation of Kuyper’s principle of sphere sovereignty results in (the necessity of) an “intrinsically Christian economic theory.” Dooyeweerd appears to be an outspoken advocate of normative economics, both in science and in practice.